Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Nazarbayev Calls for Approval of a New Latin Script for Kazakh by End of This Year

Paul
Goble

Staunton, April 12 – Nursultan Nazarbayev
has called for agreement on a new Latin-based script for Kazakh by the end of
this year in order to put Kazakhstan on track to make a complete break with the
Cyrillic-based alphabet Moscow imposed on Kazakhstan in 1940 by 2025.

Nazarbayev has been pressing for
this step since at least 2012 when Latinization was identified as a key part of
the country’s development strategy. Making progress toward an alphabet that
will link Kazakhstan more closely to the Turkic world and less closely to the
Russian one has not been easy.

On the one hand, Moscow and many members
of the ethnic Russian minority in Kazakhstan see this as a discriminatory step,
one that will split Kazakhstan down the middle (regnum.ru/news/polit/2262150.html),
and they point out that changing from one script to the other will be extremely
expensive.

And on the other, some Kazakhs are worried
that an alphabet reform will cut people off from the past and make it less
likely they will read anything. They note that this is what has happened in
other post-Soviet states that have made such a shift and suggest there is no
reason it won’t happen in Kazakhstan too.

Nazarbayev’s article does not mean that there
will be agreement before 2018 or that the Latin script will win out over
Cyrillic in the future. But his call will have the effect of mobilizing
supporters of the move – and also mobilizing opponents not only in Kazakhstan
but in Moscow

as
well.

One thing is certain, however: In
Kazakhstan, the latest battle in the alphabet wars is about to become a lot
more intense.